Trinity’s defense was the difference in Saturday morning’s first semifinal of the 69th annual Republic Bank Louisville Invitational Tournament.
Mixing some zone defense in with some man-to-man the Shamrocks put the collective clamps down on Male after intermission on their way to a 67-51 win at Valley.
Trinity, which is No. 5 in The Courier-Journal’s Litkenhous Ratings, held the 11th-ranked Bulldogs to 18 points and 33.3 percent shooting in the second half to earn a spot in Saturday night’s championship game.
“It was great,” Shamrocks coach Mike Szabo said of his team’s D. “I thought we were really dialed in, really focused on what we were trying to do and then we were able to force them into taking some tough shots, some contested shots and we rebounded the ball well.”
Trinity led by just four (48-44) late in the third quarter before Jacob King’s buzzer-beating pull-up jumper pushed that advantage to six. King then converted an old-fashioned three-point play 19 seconds into the fourth quarter before teammate L.J. Harris scored inside to boost the Shamrocks’ lead to double digits, at 55-44. They cruised from there.
King, Trinity’s junior point guard, finished with game-highs in points (20), rebounds (six) and assists (five). Gabe Schmitt added 19 and Harris 16 for the Shamrocks (16-3) who shot 52.4 percent (22 for 42) from the field and made all 16 of their free throws. They were 10 for 10 from the foul line in the final period.
“We’re down six going into the fourth quarter, which that’s not great, but we’ve already got them in the bonus,” first-year Male coach Willie Feldhaus said. “A team that shoots the ball as well as they do…it’s just the perfect recipe for what happened in the fourth quarter, a team getting away from you.”
The Bulldogs (14-3), meanwhile, shot 40.4 percent (19 for 47) from the field and were just 3 for 18 (16.7 percent) from 3-point range.
”Their defense is really good,” Feldhaus said. “They’re just really good in the halfcourt. They’re great at help, you get the ball in the dang paint you can’t dribble it because they’re going to have it. They do a really good job on the ball….(and) they just did a good job of really not giving our perimeter people good shots, when it gets right down to it.”
Senior forward Alex Cook led Male with 18 points while Kasean McCauley tallied 10 off the bench.
Male 14 19 11 7 – 51
Trinity 15 21 14 17 – 67
Male (14-3) – Bowman 3, Watts 9, Cook 18, Brownley 9, McCauley 10, Kimijwok 2.
Trinity (16-3) – King 20, Burton 3, Schmitt 19, Harris 16, Burkman 5, King 4.
3-pointers – King 3, Schmitt 3, Watts 2, Bowman 1, Burton 1.
